Pet Shipping

Has anyone out there shipped their pet? I have to do it for the move and I’m so nervous. I am memorizing the delta website (the pet cargo part) so that I don’t mess it up at all. The problem is that this is something I absolutely can not mess up on! If I mess up I won’t know how to get the pets to Columbus. They can’t ride on our flight because Southwest does not do pet shipment. Please let me know of any advice anyone may have. So nervous! I will be at our vet next Monday so I am hoping that they will have some advise too.

MY HUSBANDS A BLOGGER!

It’s true! I am in shock. But happy shock. You can find him HERE! He chose Xanga, which is a bummer, but he wanted to post what he was listening to. Please give him a visit and welcome him, you know how much we all love getting comments

Tears

So I’m an emotional roller-coaster. Jeff was gone all weekend which was fine. I miss him when he is gone but I’m okay for a couple days and usually take advantage of it to spend good time with girlfriends. On Saturday there was a cute little festival in Park Ave in Winter Park. It was beautiful out so O and I went on a date. We got lunch at BriarPatch and I found myself tearing up while old love songs played in the background. I was thinking of how much I love Jeff. How much I want to be the girl he married again. How much I want to be able to adventure with him. Take a vacation with just him. Please don’t get me wrong. I’m thankful beyond any description for Owen and the little un-named guy on the way. I would not change a thing. But how nice it would be to travel to an island with him. To be young and fit and full of life. No aches, pains, sickness… Someday

Then it is always sad to say goodbye to a friend. My friend Caroline and her family headed back to their hometown- New Jersey, this weekend. She has been such a great friend while I have been here. A true Yankee just like me It’s just a foreshadow though because in 2 weeks I will be saying bye to a lot of people I care about so much. People that in just a year have become so dear to me. Today I found myself even tearing up at our neighborhood Halloween party. Our neighborhood constantly has events. It’s like a little dream. At night when it is nice you’ll find neighbors on their big front porches, we all chat, catch up. I’m blessed with such great neighbors. Our new house has an amazing huge yard. It will be a blessing for entertaining and for Owen and his brothers adventures growing up. But, the advantage of all being so close together here is the community that naturally comes from it. I know I have amazing friends and family in Ohio that I am so excited to be close to again. But I also hope I get to know my neighbors and they can be this great.

Grey’s Anatomy made me cry. Sad episode this week. Just perfect for this emotional person I am right now.

Then Jeff finds out one of Relevant’s Authors just died in a freak accident I don’t know Kyle Lake, but Jeff did and thought so much of him. He wrote, “Understanding God’s Will”, and “Re-Understanding Prayer”. All I know is he was baptizing (he is a pastor) and got electrocuted. He is married and had 3 children. It is so hard when God takes a parent. My heart breaks for his wife and those kids. You just have to trust God beyond what you can see in those situations. To me it just seems so cruel. No kid should have to lose their parent before their time.

So today I have had a lot of good happy laughs. But I have also had many tears this weekend.

Bullet Points in Life

- It appears we are super close to selling our house and that they even want our washer dryer… I was wanting new ones anyway

-We are leaving for Columbus November 14th. This brings such mixed emotions. But in the end it adds up to such peace and a true realization that this is where we need to be. I’m so ready to go home. But I will really miss some people here.

- Thanks to Jamie I have an appointment with a great doctor the day after I land in Columbus!

- Our house looks amazing. I got an amazing deal on a girl cleaning it (spoiling myself because I’m increasingly pregnant, have a toddler and constantly showing a house.) The great part was I opened my microwave and it was SPOTLESS! What a bonus!

- I feel so out of balance. This baby is growing sooo much! I’m not someone you would see and go LOOK AT THAT BIG PREGNANT WOMAN. In fact, mostly I’m belly, which is nice. HOWEVER, I still have the right to complain about my off kilter body because the heaviness I’m carrying in the front doesn’t seem supported by much. My ligaments are spazzing so often and this is so painful. But I’m thankful for the blessing don’t get me wrong. I feel like the baby is between my legs sometimes, but I’m only 30 (almost) weeks. Just one of those things! I carry babies LOW!

-I had a great lunch with my friend Maya. Who I don’t see enough. But she will be hanging with me tomorrow night at my house

- Jeff is in Nashville. I miss him, but know he is having a good time. I went out with my dear friend, who is new to blogging Kristy, and her kind husband Kyle watched Owen Thanks so much! We ended up having a Souffle’ night. We ate at this French place called East of Paris and had Twice Baked Parmesan souffle’ followed by Hot Chocolate souffle’ for dessert, YUMMY!

- I am not sure if I mentioned this… but I find it funny I do not have a Linear Nigra (dark line that most pregnant women get this time. I mean none of us love it right? So that is good. But I totally had one with Owen, and it took a good 2 months to totally go away. Now I have no trace of any such line. Funny.

- I have great pictures to post of Owen, especially from his fall festival. But I have not loaded them yet, Maybe tonight? Maybe not.

-On a political note. There were indictments today in the whole CIA identity exposure drama. If people are guilty of breaking the law they should be punished. So this is in no way saying that shouldn’t happen (if there is guilt). I find it ironic however that I turn on the news and the political pundits I see throwing major stones at these people are the very same people that did not seem to care when a certain former PRESIDENT lied under oath, committing perjury DURING HIS PRESIDENCY and making a virtual mockery out of our judicial system. Hm. Something about that just seem so opportunistic.

Our House

Incase you care Here are pics of the house we are selling. Of course there are rooms not pictured, but this is a sample… and it is always a bummer you have to pick an angle to take a picture from so you miss out on some of the room

PLEASE CHECK OUT THIS SITE

My friend Anne Just sent this to me…

It is far better than the national registry site in the sense that I don’t feel like I get specific information from that site, and I also don’t feel it makes clear how close those people are to me.

This sex offender site actually maps your house, where these people live, where they work and so on.
If you click on a dot that represents an offender it will pull up a clear picture and what they were convicted for. I’m sure it doesn’t cover every possible offender out there, but at least it can get those known nearest to you in your head so you can at least be that much more protected.

Click THIS, just enter your address and voila!

You don’t even want to see how bad it is here in Florida! I tracked my new address in Ohio and it was barely dotted! But here it is like one massive collection of dots

Oh also this same friend has a photo card biz I never knew she did! I love it! Her site is still under construction. Check it out HERE

On a blogging note. My dear sweet friend Kristy Chowning is now blogging. Visit Kristy’s Corner!

Poddy-TIME

Song in my head: My humpas- Black Eyed Peas
“Whatcha gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside that trunk?”

Cutest Owen thing as of late:
We hadn’t changed his diaper yet after he got up from a nap yesterday. He disappeared into his room. After about a minute of silence I thought…. I better check on him. When I got in there he was on his way out the door wtih a diaper in one hand and a wipe box in another! He has never ever ASKED to get his diaper changed… and it wasn’t even that bad! So funny. I usually have to chase him to do his diaper. He has also been telling us when he poops. Could this kid be ready for poddy training? Isn’t this a bit of a complicated time to do that? I will just see if he keeps progressing in this. Seems like with all of our transition this wouldn’t be the best right now. BUT if he’s ready he’s ready?

Sitting out the outer bands of Wilma. What I find interesting is they keep showing Orlando on National news. But it really isn’t super dramatic here. Heavy wind and rain. Everything is closed. Not much to write home about.

Do people really believe this?

They were reading letters on the news today from viewers… you know the opinions of what they thought about something that was on a preceding show. Well, apparently this one was responding to a all the sex offender activism of Oprah and O’reilly. This person “karen”, I forget from where, seemed to think the media is making a big deal out of nothing. That this is some massive plot on the part of the media to place fear in the American household. She said because of the media grossly exaggerating the problem parents are afraid to let their children play outside.

I’m trying to figure out if she is from another planet? Maybe she is from a state that somehow either 1. Doesn’t have the problem as badly, or 2. It is just massively under-reported. You see in Florida here all I have to go is on the official sex offender website to realize I CAN’T EVEN GET THROUGH THE LIST OF OFFENDERS IN A 5 MILE RADIUS! Do I let my kid play outside, yes! But I keep my eye on him and I am always very aware of who he is with. Yet still, I pray constantly that God will protect him and give me incredible discernment when it comes to the people around him.

This woman has got to be in some form or denial or maybe just complete naivete? I thank God that somehow I escaped sexual abuse growing up. But I can’t even tell you how many friends of mine experienced one form or another growing up. So much so that I read a book on helping victims because I wanted to come as close to being sensitive to them and what they went through as I could. That was one hard book to read. But I can’t imagine actually going through it. Still I don’t think I would be over-estimating if I said that 50% of the people I have had deep discussions with about these things admitted to having gone through it! I am sure that not everyone is even that open, so there is probably more.

That is MY generation. I would love to think that the statistics have gone down with this generation… but I have trouble believing that.

I believe and respect the freedom of speech. So “Karen” you have the right to voice it. But PLEASE for the sake of your children and the children around you, come into reality. I’m sure you are a great person and wish harm on no one… but please understand why the rest of us long to protect our precious children and think sex offenders ought to be sent somewhere where they can only violate each other.

Irresponsible Media and Race Rioting

First off, if you have no clue what I am talking about when I mention a racism inspired riot that happened in Toledo, OH last weekend read this.

Here is my frustration with the media in the whole thing. While I was watching Heartland on Sunday night (FoxNews) John Kasich interviewed a Baptist minister from the area. During the entire interview there was a loop playing (over and over!) of the rioting. The rioters looked like animals. They did. And I am absolutely sure that is what the white supremacist wanted. But what made it so much worse was watching it over and over. There was absolutely no balance! The minister toward the end (he was great by the way) mentioned how they had an erace the hate rally about 20 minutes away from this rioting at the same time. Why could they have not shown this riot once or twice and then shown the same amount of footage of all the erace the hate rally where you would have seen black, whites, and latinos all getting along for the cause of unity. That way people aren’t going “wow those black people in Toledo are animals”, but rather they can see that this was a small amount of the minority population reacting to the HORRIBLE, SICK idea of white supremacy. Reacting inappropriately yes, but reacting. But I did not see on one television station footage of the ERACE rally To me, this is irresponsible reporting. Not only did this fragment of the urban community in Toledo play directly into the NAZI hands, but so did the media.

Just to disclaimer Mr. Kasich, he is a really good guy. He lives in Columbus and used to be a U.S. Congressman. He left politics because he felt convicted to spend more time with his family. He is a born-again Christian and a great guy. BUT I think he missed it on this one. I love his show Heartland because it is normally promoting family values and what-not. But I think just being so in the media he may not have had the forethought to have the ERACE footage, and possibly did not even know about it. That is why I call it “irresponsible” but not necessarily “malicious”.

Anyway, that is my rant on that. I have wanted to say something for awhile. I just got to it now.

Randumb Ramblings

* Jeff loves Regis and Kelly. I find this so funny. He won’t admit it. But I like watching Fox and Friends in the morning (on fox news), only a matter of time and I notice that it is on Regis and Kelly. I look at him and laugh and he says, “I put it on for you!”. Huh?

*There were actually 2 DAYS IN A ROW that I took a shower this week. Crazy. That hasn’t happened in a long time!

*Shopping is not the right cure for boredom or depression- but dang it sure feels good!

*Owen calls planes, “beans”; helocopters “cop cops”; his friend Jett, “shat”; and his lambie, “mimi”. Funny guy.

*EMI is to getting albums in stores as the government is to efficiency.

*I forgot how good tennis shoes feel on your feet. I have been in flip flops non-stop!

*I have a LONG RANT coming one of these moments about the media coverage of the riots that happened in Toledo. I just haven’t had the time or energy to get into it.

*We may get part of a hurricane, but no one really seems to know. Would absolutely be horrible to be in Can Cun right now…espeically since this hurricane seems to barely move!

*Owen blows kisses now.

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